“PerfectIt is the most robust proofreading and editing program that I’ve found on the market and it does everything that I need it to do in the legal writing context. I use a lot of terms of art and acronyms and PerfectIt is one of the few tools that picks those types of things up, reminds me to define them, and helps me spell them correctly and consistently.”
Keep up with growth while maintaining the high level of service and quick turnaround that clients are accustomed to, without increasing overhead.
Use PerfectIt to help provide the highest quality of work in less time.
Kennyhertz Perry is a business and litigation boutique representing clients in highly-regulated industries. It was founded four years ago by two veteran Kansas City lawyers, John Kennyhertz and Braden Perry. Since its founding, the firm has grown to service more than 450 clients. Its services range from prospective and remedial compliance, to working with companies to proactively prepare for anticipated regulatory changes. Clients keep turning to the firm because Kennyhertz Perry has the necessary expertise and knowledge, and as a focused boutique, they can provide that with a better client experience.
Braden brings precision and polish to a sophisticated practice. He takes a 360-degree approach to serving his clients by providing a range of business and legal counseling, including identifying and assessing compliance risks, creating policies for risk management, reviewing policies for adequacy and effectiveness, and litigating cases when necessary.
Prior to forming the firm, Braden was a senior vice president and chief compliance officer of a global financial services and FINRA member firm, senior trial attorney for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and an associate in a large law firm. He knew that when he formed Kennyhertz Perry, both he and his clients would have to transition from an infrastructure-heavy environment. Braden was determined that quality would not suffer. In fact, he was confident that he could improve the quality and the client service. The next challenge was how to continue growing. This meant that Braden needed to find a way to work smarter, not harder.
Growing any small business is challenging. But growing a small US law firm is particularly so. The field is competitive; and potential clients have a full range of options from solo practices to multimillion dollar firms. Kennyhertz Perry has managed to grow quickly by offering the quality of service associated with big firms with the personal service of much smaller ones. That can only be achieved by establishing a reputation for excellence, and using technology to maintain it.
“Professionalism is the number one part of running a successful business. So when we provide work to our clients, it needs to be a professional, finished product. I use technology to achieve that goal we since don’t have the staff of a large law firm.”– Braden Perry, Partner
While achieving rapid growth is an exciting goal, keeping up with high quality service while you’re growing presents a different challenge. How do you scale up detail-oriented, personalized, and sophisticated service? The first step is to analyze growth constraints and to determine how you can augment and extend what you can accomplish on your own. Adding additional people isn’t necessarily the answer because increased headcount increases variation and absorbs the profit gains created by growth. Braden needed to continue to do his own work, but do it faster. He correctly identified that software could provide a solution, and that proofreading was the work that could be outsourced.
During the time between matters, Braden took stock of his options and asked what processes could be improved. He considered software to ensure that the firm could be competitive and provide polished, sophisticated work to its clients—even without the massive infrastructure. Proofreading documents was a pain point that could easily be improved.
“You can spend hours reviewing client memos and court documents. It takes a while to make sure that the substance is good and the style is right. I spend quite a bit of time perfecting anything that goes out the door.”– Braden Perry, Partner
Properly proofreading conveys professionalism. Professionalism and proofreading go hand-in-hand so Braden looked for solutions and found one in PerfectIt. Proofreading is a challenge no matter your practice. When resources are abundant, many problems are easily solved by assigning more people to the project. But what do you do when you have the challenge of proofreading but not the resources? You turn to technology.
